The European Parliament believes there should be an import ban on products made using forced labor. This applies to all types of products, from clothing and perfumes to food and groceries, which must be stopped by customs at the border.
The import ban should also apply to products where only a small component was made by prisoners or under forced labor. According to the European Parliament, this should also include exploitation of illegal seasonal workers in agriculture and horticulture.
Recently, there has been much attention on large-scale Chinese fisheries that allegedly use forced labor by Uighurs in Chinese re-education camps during processing and packaging.
Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday adopted a draft report in their committees for the Internal Market and for International Trade. That report was partly drafted by Dutch MEP Samira Rafaela (D66). With 66 votes in favor, none against, and ten abstentions, the text was broadly approved.
Rafaela called forced labor “a serious violation of human rights.” According to her, the ban is essential to blocking products made with modern slavery.
The MEPs want suspicious companies to be investigated. If forced labor is proven, all import and export of the associated goods at EU borders will be halted. Companies must also withdraw goods that have already reached the EU market. The firms involved will be placed on a blacklist.
There will also be a kind of reversed burden of proof. Only when a company can prove it has ceased using forced labor will it be allowed back on the EU market. The proposal to ban products made with forced labor specifically targets so-called product surveillance.
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